Well, if I'm home in San Francisco, I say I'm in San Francisco. If I'm somewhere else, like New York, I say I'm in New York. It's kind of like how I say I'm in Black Rock City when I'm in Black Rock City.

Seems to me that there's all kinds of fodder there for describing the everyday world in terms of theme camp values. "Sure, it's interactive, but they expect every last damn visitor to work his/her ass off on some ridiculous project or another, without even the decency of a free tequila shot or gratuitous grope when it's done! What's up with that?"

<b>Babylon.</b> Got it from my '99 campmate A7N7G7E7L7, he said it with so much passion and awed contempt. It just kind of stuck. The long version is "Babylon the Gweat and Tewwible" which is about how I feel when I get back to it.

I'm guessing A7 called it that because Babylon is said to be the first great city-state on the face of the planet and the rest of the world seems to be in a mad rush to follow in its footsteps, for good or for ill. That year A7 wound up moving to some hamlet in the middle of Alaska where wolves killed a moose in his back yard.

The real world has it's perks. I can't build furniture or mill metal on the playa. And I can party more at home than I can on the playa. In fact, if I set my mind to it, there's not a thing I can't have here that I can have on the playa, other than watch nekkid hippie girls stroll by by the dozens.